Passyunk Avenue

– Tom Howells

A Philadelphia-themed dive bar and restaurant.

Passyunk Avenue is a faithfully recreated American dive bar in the scruffy bit of Fitzrovia near Baker Street. Specifically, it’s named after an increasingly hip district in South Philadelphia called Passyunk Square, and it’s all very authentic: walls are covered with vintage sports paraphernalia and two TVs were showing rowdy baseball games while I was there.

Cheesesteaks are the inevitable focus – the restaurant was born of a food truck selling them – and mine was excellent: chopped ribeye steak topped with onions and laden with homemade four-cheese sauce (their version of ‘whiz’ – a processed cheese that’s popular in America). The beef was moist and peppery, but best of all was the ‘hoagie’ roll it was stuffed in: both cloud-light and satisfyingly chewy.

(Time Out, 2018, United Kingdom, <https://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/passyunk-avenue>)